


a homecoming

by Abbie



Series: family and (mis)fortune [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Batfamily (DCU), Bisexual Male Character, Child Abandonment, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Angst, POV Tommy Merlyn, Pre-Canon, Thanksgiving Dinner, Timeline What Timeline, family and (mis)fortune au, malcolm merlyn is dead (huzzah) and bruce wayne took tommy in at 10 years old, original au posted to tumblr, set in November 2007, tommy merlyn accidentally joins the batfam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21624250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbie/pseuds/Abbie
Summary: After permanently relocating to Starling City post-college graduation against Bruce’s objections, Tommy returns home for Thanksgiving. If home is where the heart is, his is still a tale of two cities.
Relationships: Tommy Merlyn & Bruce Wayne, Tommy Merlyn & Dick Grayson, Tommy Merlyn & Oliver Queen
Series: family and (mis)fortune [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621237
Comments: 16
Kudos: 60





	a homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> back on my bullshit with another "where the hell did you even get that" au! no, i will not be putting it back.
> 
> original meta post can be found on tumblr [here](https://absentlyabbie.tumblr.com/post/188204768713/family-and-misfortune).

Tommy stood on the circular drive, duffel bag in hand, neck craned back to take in the stately manor’s edifice. The vast house crouched imposingly on the hill, thin autumn sun glinting on the faceted glass window panes facing into the western light. The architecture was styled like a Victorian’s fever dream of a castle, clad in artfully rough-hewn stone draped in ivy and adorned by four towers. 

The stern impressiveness of Wayne Manor echoed back a decade like a howl down a tunnel, and for a moment Tommy was ten years old again and unmoored, a tiny toy sailboat adrift on a stormy sea. 

A chilly breeze rattled the stripped-bare branches lining the drive and eddied brown leaves around his feet, and Tommy shook himself. He strode confidently for the front door, no longer a little lost boy. 

The door pulled open before Tommy’s fingers could so much as brush the brass knob, and Tommy laughed in genuine, pleased surprise when Alfred stood in the doorway. 

The thin older man’s face wrinkled in lines and grooves under a Britishly restrained smile. “Master Tommy,” the butler greeted warmly. “Welcome home.” 

“One of these days you’re just gonna call me ‘Tommy’,” Tommy teased, dropping his duffel on the carpet and opening his arms wide. “Come on. Bring it in.” 

Alfred chuckled and exaggerated a longsuffering expression, lifting his arms in a narrower echo of Tommy’s. Tommy took the compromise and dragged Alfred into a brisk squeeze of a hug. 

“Oof,” Alfred puffed in faux alarm. “Do take care, Master Tommy, I am fragile in my advancing age.” 

The scoffing laugh that barked out of Tommy’s chest was entirely involuntary, and entirely warranted. “Fragile. Right. You.” He pulled back to treat Alfred with his most skeptical raised eyebrow. “Because this family is just so delicate.” 

A wry smirk curled up one side of Alfred’s thin mustache despite himself. “You’ve been away too long, sir,” he chided Tommy fondly. 

Tommy’s grin subsided to a smaller if no less warm smile. “It’s only been six months.” 

Alfred bent to pick up Tommy’s duffel bag, calmly swatting Tommy’s hands and protests away when he tried to take it back. “You did rather surprise us all when you moved out directly after your college graduation. I believe Master Bruce was expecting you would return home after, at least for a time.” 

“I did,” Tommy said with a forced breeziness, following Alfred up the grand staircase, “just, you know. The other home.” 

A hum was his only answer, and Tommy tried not to take it with a sting. His foster family had taken his permanent relocation to Starling City with a rather mixed bag of reactions. Dick and Tim had hardly seemed surprised, and Tommy wouldn’t have imagined the choice could shock Bruce—he wouldn’t have imagined _anything_ he might do could shock Bruce—but it was from that quarter he had so unexpectedly encountered resistance. 

Unease burbled quietly in Tommy’s gut as he trailed Alfred down the long hallway, and he hoped that Bruce had come more to terms with Tommy’s decision in the last year. 

“Here you are, Master Tommy.” Alfred stopped before one of the thick cherrywood doors and pressed it open, the bedroom suite beyond bathed in soft light filtered through the tall window’s gauzy curtain. “Your room is much as you left it, though I have taken the liberty of refreshing your bedding and toiletries since you informed me of your arrival.” 

Tommy tore his gaze from its nostalgic crawl around the room to award Alfred another affectionate smile. “Thanks, Alfred. You’re the best.” He accepted his duffel back from Alfred and stepped inside. Before Alfred could close the door behind him, he turned and asked, “Hey, where is everybody anyways?” 

Alfred treated him to a twinkling eye and vague smile. “They’re around. I’m certain you’ll all see each other at dinner, if not sooner.” 

“You didn’t tell, right?” Tommy tapped his fingers against his leg, not quite sure if it was nerves or anticipation jittering along his bones. 

Alfred nodded solemnly, patting a hand to his chest. “The soul of discretion.” 

Tommy burst into laughter, ever caught off guard by Alfred’s dry humor. “You aren’t kidding. What time’s dinner?” 

“Six-thirty PM, sharp, as always.” 

Still chuckling, Tommy turned to toss his bag in the direction of the bed, falling far short across the enormous room. “Of course. I’ll be there with bells on.” 

“Oh, please don’t,” Alfred huffed, feigning exasperation. “Once was quite enough.” 

Alfred left Tommy to his snickering, and Tommy set to unpacking. 

The process was over quickly, as Tommy hadn’t needed to bring much to begin with. For all that he had an apartment in Starling in his own name, a job and a vibrant social life, even half a year out of Gotham, Wayne Manor was still at least partly _home_. Tommy still had clothes in the dresser drawers and suits in the closet, and he’d be willing to bet Alfred kept his preferred toiletries stocked at all times, rather than simply in advance of a scheduled visit. 

The buzzing of his phone rattled Tommy’s jacket pocket as he shut the closet door. The screen was an overexposed selfie of him and Oliver, their cheeks mashed together, eyes crossed and lips twisted in exaggerated snarls. Tommy’s lips twitched in reflexive amusement as he put the phone to his ear. “Buddy, I’ve only been gone like half a day, this pining is too much. Think of the scandal!” 

“Ha ha,” Oliver drawled, slightly muffled. “It’s not like it’d be the first time the paps decided we were secretly screwing, and I could do worse.” 

“You _have_ done worse,” Tommy needled, grinning. “Many times. Repeatedly. You should be so lucky.” 

“Laurel would kill me,” Ollie shot back, the humor in his tone weak. “Or you.” 

Tommy’s eyes narrowed. “You better not be calling to bitch about your gorgeous girlfriend again, dude.” 

Oliver groaned loudly, some static suggesting he was on the move. “You are supposed to be on my side.” 

“I _am_ on your side, always. It’s just that she’s hot and super cool and you’re being a huge dumbass, so sometimes being on your side means smacking you upside the head.” He paused. “Did you do something again?” 

“Why do you have to assume I fucked up?” Oliver grumbled defensively. “Why is she never the problem? Oh, of course, _duh_ , Oliver Queen is always the problem, I’m _the_ problem.” 

Tommy’s eyebrows shot up, a splash of concern cooling his amusement. “Wow, that was kinda bitter. Like, I can spend a few minutes channeling my shrink at you if you want, because you are not ‘ _the_ problem’, but that doesn’t mean it’s cool if you’ve cheated on your girlfriend again, but, uh… for real, are you okay?” 

There was a long, prickly pause, before a crackle across the line suggested a harsh exhale. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. Forget it.” 

“Ollie—” 

“So how’s things at Downton Abbey?” Oliver redirected brittlely. “How’s Di _ck_?” he asked, punching the ending consonants unnecessarily. 

Tommy rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, choosing to let go of the initial topic for now. “Don’t know yet. Just got here. I don’t even know if Dick is here yet or how long he’ll stay, but Alfred said he’s supposed to be here for Thanksgiving dinner tonight at least.” 

“You could’ve just done Thanksgiving here,” Oliver muttered sullenly. “Raisa was asking if she should make that pie you love.” 

Tommy sucked a wincing breath through his teeth. “Oh, low blow. C’mon, Bruce has already been testy that I moved away to Starling without asking permission first or whatever. I should at least come home for one of the holidays, and Christmas is The Big Deal with you guys. So it’s Thanksgiving here.” 

Oliver sighed. “Home. Gotham’s still home, then.” Before Tommy could speak around his surprise, Oliver asked in a small, reluctant voice, “Is it because I couldn’t get the apartment with you like we said?” 

“Ollie…” Tommy gaped blindly at the bedroom for a second, trying to string his words together. “No. Of course not. There’s home too. Where you are has _always_ been home. When you can move into the apartment, that’ll just make it more so, but… come on.” He sat on the bed, running a hand over his hair. “I’ve always had two homes. You know that.” 

Oliver was silent for just a beat, then sighed. “Yeah. I know. Guess I’m just still shit at sharing.” 

A laugh stuttered through Tommy’s lips. “Now that is the damn truth. But I’ll be _home_ before you know it.” Oliver grumbled, but the tension had gone out of it, tugging the smile back to the corners of Tommy’s mouth. “I’ll tell Dick you said hi.” 

Oliver snorted. “Sure. Tell him finally how hot you think his ass is, while you’re at it.” 

“Asshole,” Tommy chuckled. 

“Hey, ass, asshole, whichever, that’s between you and him,” Oliver teased. 

“Fuck you.” Tommy laughed harder, falling back onto the mattress. 

“I mean, if you think making him jealous like that will finally make him notice you, I’m not saying no…” 

“Oh my god,” Tommy cut him off, stomach twitching with giggles. “You’re the worst, the absolute worst. I’m hanging up now.” 

He pulled the phone away from his face as Oliver shouted something else undoubtedly rude, and Tommy took great pleasure in ending the call without hearing the rest. 

That lasted for only a moment, the worry over Oliver’s brooding moods and, yes, even seeing Dick sliding together with all his other concerns to roil leadenly in his gut. He stared at the ceiling for a span of minutes, the old anxiety creeping in to stir the mix and whisper failures and embarrassments and worst case scenarios in his ear. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath in through his nose, held it while tapping out a count on his stomach, and pushed the air out through his mouth. 

The worst of the buzzing anxiety calmed, he pushed up from the bed and headed to the door. 

Back in the hall, Tommy was welcomed by a familiar silence. 

It wasn’t the hollow hush of the old Merlyn compound, thick and suffocating, a quiet that stole the oxygen from every room. In those two dark years after his mother’s death, Tommy remembered, he would sometimes stand at the top of the staircase overlooking the grand foyer and yell until his young lungs ached and his throat went hoarse. He did it to try to drown out his own footsteps, his own breathing, but those sprawling halls with their thick carpets and plush runners absorbed the sound into nothing almost as soon as it left his mouth. He’d had nightmares for years about that house and that silence, that it would absorb him, too, the walls and floors pulling him in until he was as quiet and still and _gone_ as everything else. 

It had been the hardest part of adjusting after Bruce took him away to Wayne Manor. At first, he had thought the days of dissolving silence were over when he learned he wouldn’t be the only boy in the house, and meeting Dick had only encouraged that hope. Dick had always been quick, bright energy and laughing wit, and Tommy had tripped after him like a puppy, eager to soak up every lively, warm snatch of Dick’s presence. Bruce was never given to chatter at home, but the sound of his low, steady voice murmuring from around the corner or in the next room had been a reassurance. It had been an anchor-weight, just to hear that other people inhabited the house with him. 

Alfred spoke only when he had something to say, and almost never raised his voice, but he could often be detected by the sound of a running faucet, a vacuum running down the hall, the clink of cutlery in the kitchen. Tommy still considered it a private treasure, the discovery some six months into his stay that when Alfred thought he was completely alone, he could occasionally be caught humming under his breath. 

But there were times, in those early days, when Tommy would come out of his room, especially late at night, or in the evenings when he bored of his homework, and was paralyzed by a stillness that spread like chill through the manor’s air. There would be no music behind Dick’s bedroom door, no puffing breath and grunting in the sparring or weight rooms, no calm puttering in the domestic spaces. Just quiet, heavy and fuzzy as a smothering wool blanket. 

In those days, he couldn’t know that he was never alone, that Dick and Bruce or at least Aflred were below, in the cave, in a separate world so near it undergirded the house’s foundations. So early on, the knowing might not have helped anyways. Might not have stopped the panic seizing his throat shut, the dread and loneliness locking his limbs up tight as the oppressive _quiet_ breathed down his neck and glued his clothes to his skin with cold sweat. 

He would spend hours, even days after these times withdrawn or sullen, glaring at food he would hardly eat, refusing to look anyone in the eye. Dick would often coax him out of these moods with bad jokes and worse puns, silly pranks and sheer enthusiasm. Bruce always seemed to think he could wait Tommy out, that if he was patient enough Tommy would just tell him why he was being a jerk. 

It was Alfred, eventually, who figured it out. He hadn’t forced Tommy to tell him, or admonished him for being difficult. He had paid attention, and when he felt certain he understood the problem, he presented a solution. A solution, and a gentle lie. (There had, of course, been many such gentle lies in those first years.) Alfred had made such simple, plausible excuses for Dick’s and Bruce’s absences that Tommy couldn’t even remember them now, only that he had, at not-quite-eleven, accepted them. 

What stuck with him was the walkie talkie Alfred had gifted to him like a secret just for them. He had explained that sometimes at night he had to take inventory in the secure vault that housed Wayne family valuables. That he had to be locked inside when he did, and that there were very complicated adult reasons Tommy couldn’t be in there with him. But the walkie talkies, he explained, would make it so Tommy could talk to him and make sure he wasn’t as alone as the big house made it seem. 

In hindsight, it warmed Tommy’s chest with affection and laughter to imagine Alfred down in the Batcave, criminal records on the computer screen and Batman and Robin on the comm in his ear, while on the walkie talkie Tommy asked him for help with pre-algebra or if he was allowed to have a second bowl of ice cream. 

It was around that time that Bruce seemed to realize Tommy would benefit from seeing a therapist. That had been its own battle at the beginning, but in time it had done Tommy a great deal of good. By the time he knew the truth about Bruce and Dick’s nighttime disappearances, he had been able to step out of his room and experience the quiet as an artifact of trust. They had important, frightening, vital work to do, and trusted that at the end of it, Tommy would be there when they came home. 

Of course, it wasn’t long after _that_ that Jason entered their lives and taught Tommy to long for quiet and the peace it brought to Wayne Manor. 

Memory lane stopped at a bedroom door that had been sealed like a tomb for over two years now, and Tommy set his hand against the wood, feeling the smooth grain under his fingertips and listening for faded echoes of Jason’s rough-textured voice and frenetic music. 

It was funny, the things you could learn to miss. 

The melancholy of memory clung to Tommy’s edges like shadows, thinning and dissipating the further he went. 

This was supposed to be a good visit. A reconciliation, even, as long as he didn’t lose his nerve. Brooding on the past was unlikely to set the right tone. 

He was only a few steps down the staircase when the front door opened and a lean, dark haired teenager slipped quietly through. 

Tommy stopped on the stairs, a grin blooming wide across his face while he waited to be noticed. 

It didn’t take long. 

Shutting the door carefully, Tim ran a surreptitious scan around the area—and did a truly hilarious double take once his gaze passed the staircase. Tommy laughed as Tim’s eyes widened to near-saucer proportions, the kid’s mouth falling open in surprise. 

“Tommy!” 

Tommy stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered down the remaining stairs while Tim hurried to the bottom. “Hey, kiddo. Miss me?” 

Tim hardly let him clear the last step before yanking Tommy into a hug. “Why didn’t you say you were coming? It’s been months!” 

Tommy puffed a non-exaggerated grunt at the force of Tim’s hug, trying to give as good as he got despite Tim’s evidently superior muscle strength. “Holy shit, you’ve been eating your Wheaties. And I did say I was coming! I told Alfred.” 

Tim released Tommy so abruptly that Tommy had to rock back on his heels to maintain balance. “Alfred!” Tim’s affected outrage was broken by a crooked smile. “I can’t believe you’d enlist him in this subterfuge. Does Bruce know you’re home?” 

Tommy grimaced. “I mean. It’s Bruce. So maybe? But not because he’s supposed to.” 

Tim narrowed his eyes. “Is this a surprise or procrastination?” 

Tommy put on his best charming smile. “I don’t see any reason it can’t be both.” 

“You’re gonna have to talk to him eventually.” 

A change of subject was in order. Tommy attacked from the side. “So who were you sneaking out to see, huh?” 

Shoulders twitching under his motorcycle jacket, Tim slid his gaze sideways and affected a casual disinterest. “Sneaking? I just came in the front door, that’s hardly sneaking. I live here.” 

“Uh huh.” Tommy grinned, sizing up his younger foster brother. There was product in his hair and while Tim was no fashion slouch, the leather jacket, fitted jeans, and snug sweater all screamed a very specific message. “It’s weird how you’re Robin but such a shitty, shitty liar. Tim Drake, are you _dating_?” 

“Wow, look at the time!” Tim declared, squinting dramatically at his naked wrist. “I better go wash up for dinner or Alfred’s gonna give me that disappointed look, gotta go!” 

He tore past Tommy and leapt up the stairs two at a time, like he literally couldn’t get away from the subject of him dating fast enough. Tommy fell against the bannister, cackling. 

“You’re not even wearing a watch, Timothy!” 

Tim skidded to a stop just before he disappeared down the hall. Sticking his tongue out at Tommy, he shot back, “I have an impeccable internal clock,” before vanishing from sight. 

Still chuckling, Tommy looked at his own watch—which he, at least, was actually wearing—for the time. Dinner wasn’t for more than an hour yet, so he decided he’d wander around a bit more, see if anything had changed or who he might run into. 

His self-guided tour took him through a decade’s worth of memories, the years folded and layered and compressed into the walls, the floors, the dust motes spinning lazily in the last of the sunlight. He brushed his fingers along leatherbound book spines in the library, lips quirking with a fond smile at the bottom shelf in the back corner bursting with comic books and graphic novels well-thumbed by four boys. He poked his head into three different well-appointed, little-used sitting rooms, unchanged since he’d last been in them. Passed by the cloakroom—an honest to god cloakroom—that had been party to so many games and pranks and childhood antics the specifics all blurred together. 

The portrait room was as tomblike and creepy as ever, but Tommy ventured under the looming, flat gazes of Thomas and Martha Wayne anyways. It was worth it to see the photos along the back wall, under the large photo of Bruce in his mid-twenties, impeccably suited and falsely affable. 

Medium-sized professional photos marched under Bruce’s heavy frame. First, Dick, the photo taken not long before Tommy had arrived in the house, when Dick was maybe twelve or thirteen, a shade gawky in growing but even then with those sharp, laughing eyes. Next was Tommy himself, at fourteen. Not because Bruce hadn’t offered to add his portrait in the four preceding years, but because it wasn’t until he was fourteen that Tommy had allowed it. It had taken those four years to untangle his feelings about landing here to accept himself as part of this family. To convince himself that it wasn’t letting go of his mother. That his father wouldn’t be disgusted, disappointed, betrayed. That Bruce and Dick and Alfred really _wanted_ him here, that they weren’t going anywhere and neither was he. Four long, hard years to believe and accept he belonged. 

The next portrait was Jason’s, sixteen and surly and looking distinctly uncomfortable in his formal suit. And finally was Tim, twelve and looking younger even than that. Tommy chuckled to himself, remembering how _small_ Tim had been when he’d first arrived. He’d gotten taller and more muscular, but he’d always be lean and fine-boned, Tommy suspected. 

There were numerous small, framed photos crowding the wall under the medium four. These were Tommy’s favorites in the room, casual pictures and candids taken over the years, some at random, some at events hosted at the manor or graduations or awards ceremonies. There was no particular chronology to their arrangement, but dotted across the breadth of the wall you could watch all the boys grow up, Bruce get older. Alfred was present in many of them, as he should be. Alfred didn’t have a portrait of his own on this wall. Of course, that was only because _his_ portrait was on the left wall with Bruce’s parents. It wasn’t as large as Thomas’s or Martha’s, but was of a size with the family portrait showing Bruce at seven or eight with his parents, set parallel with that one under the larger two. 

Tommy shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and surveyed the wall in entirety, gaze lingering in the end on the medium-sized portraits and the one of Bruce. He shook his head and chuckled, muttering under his breath, “We really do look like a collection of mini me’s, don’t we. Like a matched set picked up at four different thrift stores.” 

He left the portrait room still smiling and paused at the double doors just after it, down at the end of the hall. The smile faded, a little nervous curiosity bubbling like carbonation in his stomach. 

Making up his mind, he opened the right door carefully on silent, well-oiled hinges. The large study was dim in the twilight that stroked through the tall, arched windows like blue-gray paint, draping the elegant furniture in deep shadows that drifted upward to gather under the high ceiling. The room was empty but for the weighted, waiting hush. 

Tommy slipped inside, leaving the door to the hall open to let in a little of the golden light with him. He walked softly across the thick, enormous center rug, his eyes running over every line and angle of the room. He wasn’t _looking_ at any of it so much as he was avoiding staring at the one feature of the room he felt drawn to like a magnet. Even still, his feet answered the pull and carried him across the room to the far wall. 

There, between two tall, weighty bookshelves, stood a grandfather clock, beautiful and old and imposing in size. 

It fit right in with the room, with the style of the furniture and solemn gravitas of its elegant, understated decoration. The clock looked to any ignorant eye like a lovely antique, a well-chosen statement piece. To Tommy, it was just another piece of duality under this roof. A simple, aesthetically appealing facade, containing shadows of impossible depth. 

Tommy smirked at his own thoughts. Perhaps that had been a little too literal, given what lay within and beyond the polished wood and gleaming glass. 

Nevertheless, he felt absurdly, foolishly hesitant as he lifted a hand towards the catch on the front panel of the clock. Like he was breaking a rule, a little boy about to trample a taboo. 

His fingers never lighted on the brass clasp. 

“No one’s down there.” 

Tommy’s heart thudded like a hammer against his sternum, but he lowered his hand calmly to his side, slipping it into his pocket as he turned. “I just sort of assumed that was where you’d be.” 

Bruce stood in the doorway, half silhouette from the dim in the room and the light at his back. He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, his arms crossed loosely over his chest, the sleeves of his expensively soft umber sweater pushed up to his elbows. There was just enough shadow falling over him to obscure his expression from this distance, though those pale blue eyes glittered. “It’s Thanksgiving. I was in the kitchen, helping Alfred.” 

Tommy put his other hand in his pocket as well and took a few steps away from the grandfather clock, hissing exaggeratedly through his teeth. “Helping? Or getting on his impeccably British nerves and burning the dressing?” 

Bruce’s only answer to that was a quiet harrumph, and he straightened and took a step back into the hall. The better lighting only revealed a still-unreadable expression on his face as Tommy drew up just across the threshold. 

“You didn’t tell me you’d be coming home.” It was a plain statement, but Tommy couldn’t help but feel the needle in it. Bruce looked him up and down, no doubt gaining far more insight into Tommy’s thoughts and feelings than Bruce was giving away himself. “Come on.” 

He gestured down the hall with a tip of his head and started walking, leaving Tommy to follow or fall behind. 

Tommy hurried after, grimacing at the feeling of being a kid all over again. “...I thought it’d be a nice surprise.” 

“Hmm.” Bruce passed the sitting rooms and the library, leading Tommy across the foyer and decidedly not to the kitchen. “I’m glad to see you, of course. You’re always welcome here.” 

Tommy squinted at Bruce’s back, suspicious and uneasy. 

Bruce stopped and put his hand on the knob of the door he now stood in front of, looking Tommy in the eye to say, “This is your home, after all.” 

He opened the door and went inside. 

Tommy hesitated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other with a grimace. Finally, swallowing a groan, he slouched reluctantly through the doorway and into the sparring room. 

Bruce was already on the other side of the room, a thick wooden stick in one hand as he surveyed a rack of others in various lengths and weights. “Shoes off,” he commanded softly. 

Tommy sighed, whining on the inside even as he bent to remove his black chelsea boots. He lined them up neatly at the edge of the thick mat covering most of the floor, stalling for time. “Neither of us is exactly dressed for a workout.” 

Bruce raised his eyebrow at Tommy when he straightened, offering him an eskrima stick. “Situations requiring you to defend yourself won’t wait politely for you to change clothes.” 

Tommy let out a gusty exhale and rolled his eyes, nevertheless stepping onto the mat and accepting the extended stick and its mate. “I know we didn’t exactly part on the best of terms,” he winced at his own words, eyes on his hands as he tested the sticks’ weight and grip, “but beating the crap out of me as soon as I come back seems a little much.” 

The mat creaked under Bruce’s weight and Tommy looked up to see him sliding into a ready position with his own sticks. “This isn’t a punishment. I may not have been in favor of you relocating to Starling, but what’s done is done. What I _can_ do something about is make sure whether or not you’ve been keeping in practice.” 

Teeth grinding, Tommy dropped into his own ready stance, a flicker of frustration pushing back at the timidity and guilt roiling his gut. “Starling’s not Gotham. No weird crocodile men or claymation ex-actors. The only clowns there do birthday parties, not banks.” 

“Still plenty of crime in Starling,” Bruce returned mildly. “Of the major American cities, they had the 9th highest murders per capita in 2005.” 

Tommy made a face, his sticks dipping from ready position. “That is such a fucking _weird_ thing to know, Bruce.” 

That, of course, was Bruce’s cue to attack. 

Tommy scrambled to protect himself, bringing his own sticks up just in time to catch the blow—and each that followed. 

_Clack. Clack-clack. Clack clack clack_

For a wordless minute, Bruce crowded Tommy around the borders of the mat, relentless in his assault, implacable in expression. Tommy gritted his teeth and defended with his whole focus. 

The pattern of it—defend, dodge, defend, duck, defend, sidestep—felt too like their last encounter. It had not happened in this room, with weapons in hand. No weapons but their words, which had drawn blood enough. 

Bruce had treated that conversation like an instructive sparring match—one Tommy had been meant to learn from through his failure, his surrender. Bruce had started cool, calm, like he looked now as his sticks hit Tommy’s hard enough to jar the bones of his arms. He had been just as relentless with his logic and reason— _Starling is behind you, don’t look for the future there_ —and Tommy had scrambled, unprepared for a fight. 

The blow hit Tommy at the top of his right thigh, more sting than pain. He grunted, spittle flying from bared teeth as Bruce danced backward across the mat. 

Just like then, just as now—Tommy’s frustration sparked and caught. 

_It’s_ my _future. It’s where I say it is_. 

He lunged forward—and fell into a forward roll under Bruce’s raised guard, spinning in a crouch to graze Bruce’s calf as Bruce already leapt to escape Tommy’s reach. Tommy’s bared teeth as he stood were now half-grin, and Bruce narrowed his eyes, dipping his chin in the slightest of nods. 

The next strike came so fast and heavy Tommy fell onto his back even as he parried it off his crossed sticks. 

_You have too much potential to sink it into that city for the sake of one relationship._

Heart pounding, Tommy rolled tightly sideways just as the stick above him came down. Thinking quick, he swept out one leg, the back of his knee catching against Bruce’s heel. Bruce went down and tumbled backward rather than be caught, and the swing of Tommy’s stick caught only empty air. 

_You don’t have to like Oliver, but he is every bit as much my family as you_. 

It could have been a stalemate. Then, now. They crouched opposite each other, eyes locked. 

Bruce shifted his foot underneath him, lifted his sticks higher. 

_That may be, but with him you make bad choices. I don’t want to see you fixated on destructive patterns, or on the past_. 

Tommy tensed. 

_That’s rich, coming from you_. 

And opened his hands. 

His sticks hit the mat with muffled thuds, but Tommy’s attention was fixed on the flicker of surprise on Bruce’s face. And then, on the tinge of respect. 

Because it wasn’t a surrender. 

But this time, it seemed, Bruce wasn’t looking for one. 

Swallowing despite his dry mouth, annoyed by his heavy breathing and the sweat painting a cold path down his back, uncomfortable and itching under his own hunter green sweater, Tommy lowered his hands to brace against the vinyl-covered foam. “Satisfied?” 

Bruce stood, hands—weapons—at his sides. “Pick them up.” 

Tommy’s face twisted in irritation as Bruce crossed the distance between them. “Not good enough for you?” 

“Of course not,” Bruce answered easily, and Tommy’s chest twinged. Then, the corners of Bruce’s mouth twitched, curled. “We don’t leave weapons on the floor. You know better than that.” 

He switched both sticks to his left hand and held the right out to Tommy. 

Tommy’s mouth fell open, brows climbing. Hesitating, he reached up and clasped his hand firmly with Bruce’s. Bruce pulled him to his feet and met him at eye-level with a small but warm smile. “You held your own. Well done.” 

He moved past Tommy and returned his sticks to the rack, heedless of the frown of surprise Tommy pinned to his back. 

Bruce turned back around and raised one sharp brow, eyes dropping indicatively to Tommy’s weapons, still on the mat. Tommy bent and collected them hurriedly. 

“Dinner won’t be long now. You’d better go wash up.” 

“Wouldn’t have needed to before you made me get all sweaty,” Tommy muttered, timidly, playfully shouldering Bruce out of the way to rerack his sticks. “Grossly unfair that you look like you took a light jog down the hall.” 

“Well,” Bruce rejoined lightly, heading for the door. He turned on the threshold, startling Tommy with a smirk and a wink. “I _am_ Batman.” 

He left Tommy stunned and laughing by the weapons rack. 

Shoes retrieved, Tommy drifted back upstairs and to his room in a daze. He had been dreading the confrontation with Bruce since he’d booked the Thanksgiving Day flight a week ago. He had been sure things between them would be tense, chilly even. That he would have to be prepared to either out-stubborn _the Batman_ , or find a way to break the ice and pave the path to reconciliation. He had psyched himself up for two possibilities: another argument, or the unpleasant swallowing of pride. 

He hadn’t expected… that. A few words dispelling the entire fight as _what’s done is done_ , and a sparring match to feel like they were on equal footing again. 

Tommy wondered over the simplicity of it all as he stripped out of his sweaty clothes and got into the shower. He’d had so few real disagreements with Bruce over the years, he supposed he had reflexively expected it to go something like his fuzzy memories of trouble with his father. 

As a child, Tommy had hardly been able to get into actual fights with his dad, but he remembered the way Malcolm had gotten when he was angry or thought he was being disobeyed. So many years later, it was more impressionist painting than crisp photograph. Hot anger, like a volcano erupting, all shouting and sharp gestures. And when it cooled, it iced over, rigid, brittle, unforgiving, the only solution waiting for the thaw. 

Tommy stuck his head under the shower spray to rinse out the conditioner and sighed, willfully dismissing the lingering echoes of unease his thoughts had conjured. 

If he could avoid a nasty confrontation and skip straight to the reconciliation part of things with Bruce, he wasn’t about to look a gift bat in the mouth. 

His snickering at his own pun bounced off the tiles of the steam-filled bathroom. Tommy wrapped a bath towel around his hips, rubbing a smaller towel against his hair as he opened the door and released himself—and the steam—into the bedroom. 

“You in there laughing at your own dumb jokes again?” 

Tommy froze. Slowly, as if he were in a horror movie, he lifted his head enough to see out from under the towel. 

Sprawled bonelessly across his coverlet in dark wash jeans and a Gotham University sweatshirt, back against the headboard and hands laced behind his head, Dick Grayson grinned at Tommy broadly. 

Grateful his skin was flushed from his shower and couldn’t flush for more suspicious reasons, Tommy sucked in a breath and responded quickly. “If my jokes are dumb, it’s because I learned from the best.” 

Quickly. He responded _quickly_ , not necessarily nimbly. 

“Aw, you flatterer,” Dick teased, the tip of his tongue catching between his teeth. 

Tommy threw the towel he’d been drying his hair with at him, which Dick caught with one hand, laughing. 

“How’d you know I was here?” 

Dick sat up, eyes rolling. “Tim has a big fat mouth and tattled on you.” 

Tommy clucked his tongue. “I’m gonna get that kid.” 

“You leave him alone,” Dick laughed. “Why didn’t you just tell everybody you were coming? I almost didn’t, you know. I would’ve missed you.” 

“You didn’t miss me already?” Tommy shot back with a wink. The tilt of Dick’s head and the purse of his lips was unimpressed. Tommy shrugged, hitching up the towel around his hips and crossing to the dresser. “I decided kinda last minute. Figured I’d surprise everybody.” 

“Uh huh. Definitely had nothing to do with putting off talking to Bruce.” 

Tommy sighed dramatically as he dug up some clothes. “I am capable of multitasking, you know. I can delightfully surprise my family for Thanksgiving and avoid butting heads with our illustrious patriarch all at the same time.” 

The mattress creaked, and Tommy glanced back to see Dick fully horizontal, one knee bent up and fingers drumming on his stomach idly. “Yeah, and how’s that working out for you?” 

“Pretty great, actually,” Tommy answered breezily, turning around with clothes folded in hand. “We’ve already put the whole thing to rest.” 

Dick furrowed his brow, frowning. “Just like that, huh?” 

“Just like that,” Tommy agreed, moving to stand beside the bed. “It was easier than I thought, actually.” 

Dick scoffed, head shaking back and forth on Tommy’s pillow. “Man, to be you.” 

It was Tommy’s turn to frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Nothing,” Dick dismissed, waving a hand. “Forget about it.” 

Tommy folded his arms across his chest, hip cocking. “Careful, you’re starting to sound like Jason.” 

“Uh, excuse you,” Dick raised one objecting finger. “Only when every other word out of my mouth is ‘fuck’ and I start ranting about how some motherfuckers just need to die will I sound like Jason.” 

Tommy tipped his head to concede the point. “You said you almost didn’t come today. Things that busy in Bludhaven?” 

Dick shrugged. “I mean, it’s Bludhaven. It’s never not busy. But mostly I was just trying to decide if I wanted to do the four hour drive, and Tim was here so it wasn’t like I was leaving the old guys all alone or whatever.” 

“You know if none of us were here Bruce would just spend the whole day in the suit, right.” 

“Obviously. But anyways, Alfred started texting me pictures of the stuff he was making this morning, because the lovely bastard knows the way to my heart is directly through my stomach.” 

Tommy laughed. “Don’t get your hopes up too high, Bruce was in there ‘helping’ earlier.” 

Dick made a “yikes” face, sucking air in through his teeth. 

Unable to resist, standing over Dick with him stretched like that across Tommy’s own bed, Tommy reached out and flicked the end of Dick’s ponytail where it was laid over Dick’s shoulder. “Still growing this out?” 

“For now.” Dick grinned cheekily. “Why, don’t like it?” 

Tommy tucked his hand back into his folded arms, desperately hoping he wasn’t blushing. “It’s better than the mullet,” he deflected. 

“It was not a mullet, it was just bangs!” Dick protested laughingly, sitting up to smack his knuckles against Tommy’s stomach. His eyebrows raised in surprise and he did it again. “Are you working on abs?” 

Tommy exclaimed in annoyance, swatting Dick’s hand away as he continued to try and poke at Tommy’s gut. “Would you quit? Some of us work out to be sexy, not just so we can crush the skulls of henchman between our thighs.” 

“Skull-crushing thighs are very sexy, thank you,” Dick sniffed. “But it’s definitely not henchman skulls going between these bad boys.” 

He slapped one of his legs, eyebrows waggling, and Tommy groaned loudly in performative disgust while attempting to shove Dick off his bed. He needed Dick to leave and stop lying so appealingly on his bed and making allusions to sex acts, for his health and sanity he needed it. 

“Get out. Get out, you weird, lecherous man.” 

Giggling, Dick grabbed at Tommy’s wrist and fended him off with a bare foot. “Lecherous…? Clutch those pearls a little tighter, Tommy. Did I embarrass you?” he crooned, jerking on Tommy’s arm like he’d yank him onto the bed. “Are you scandalized by my gorgeous thighs?” 

“Hey!” Tommy yelled, nearly losing his footing and his towel in one go. He snatched at the terrycloth around his hips, holding tight to the knot. “You brat! Are you trying to see me naked? Get out and let me get dressed.” 

“Starling has made you practically Victorian, my god, you’re blushing!” Dick cackled, parrying another attempt to tip him off the bed with the other foot. 

“Have some dignity and stop trying to make me lose mine,” Tommy complained, sticking his rear out to keep Dick’s jabbing feet from upsetting the towel knot. 

“Dignity? I don’t know her.” 

“Shocking. I’m shocked. Stunned—damn it, stop that! If you make me drop this towel I swear to god I will sit on your head with my bare ass.” 

“Hey, now, getting a little weird in here.” 

“And whose fault is that!” 

“How dare you cast aspersions on my good name? I am offended! Affronted! Outraged, I tell y— _oof_.” 

“Ha!” Finally, Tommy succeeded in freeing himself of Dick’s grip and shoving him off the far side of the bed in one move, and the towel even stayed put. He beamed triumphantly. “Boy Wonder, my ass. Bested by one nearly-naked man with decorative abs.” 

Dick tumbled backward with annoying grace, popping up with an acrobatic bounce and a beatific smile. “Or did I _let_ you win?” 

“You did not.” 

Dick winked and turned for the door. “I’d better let you get dressed, it’s almost time for dinner. Bye!” 

“You did _not_!” 

The door closed Dick’s cackling out in the hall and Tommy raised the hand still holding his balled up clothes as if he might throw them after him. After a moment, he lowered his arm and fell slowly, groaning, like a downed tree, facedown on the bed. 

His skin was warm and flushed and his heart pounding, and not just from the goofing around. 

Why did Dick Grayson still have to be so _damnably_ attractive? Inappropriate crushes ought to come with expiration dates, Tommy thought. It just wasn’t reasonable that he should have to suffer under being so painfully aware of someone he by all rights ought to view as an older brother sort of figure. 

God, Ollie was gonna get such a laugh out of this later. The prick. 

As if summoned, Tommy’s phone chimed a text alert on the nightstand. 

He stretched to snatch it off the nightstand and thumbed the home button. 

_Laurel asked me to move in with her._

Tommy stared. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t that. 

He read the text again. And again. One line. Eight words. 

The panic and confusion all but radiated from the phone screen. 

He was probably supposed to ask for more information. Let Oliver vent, let him freak out. Talk him down, reassure him, offer him advice. 

Tommy had no idea how to respond. 

He liked Laurel. He liked Laurel a _lot_. If Laurel and Oliver hadn’t been an on again off again couple since Tommy came back from summer vacation at sixteen, Tommy would have probably managed to like Laurel a little _too_ much. But his and Ollie’s plan to share an apartment together after college had been common knowledge since the tenth grade and had never actually _changed_. 

Sure, Tommy had graduated, and Ollie was still barely a college junior with only a placeholder major declared, and _sure_ , Tommy knew Laurel and Oliver had been getting more serious. Or, that at least Laurel had been getting more serious about their relationship. 

It still hadn’t occurred to him that any of that would derail the future he’d pictured since the moment he’d decided to move to Starling permanently. Him and Oliver, every day, under one roof at last. It had all seemed like an endless summer in his head, long golden days and nights with pizza and beer and video games, or night clubs and dancing and flirting with hot people. The job Tommy had right now, he’d been thinking of as a stand-in until Oliver was ready to get down to business about starting a club of their own, or whatever else they decided to do. _Together_. Together was always the key word in all these plans and assumptions. 

It was one of the few things Tommy had let himself believe was rock solid in life, without question. 

So he knew he should patiently let Oliver whine and panic and grumble, and then lovingly take the piss in reminding Ollie that Laurel was amazing and he was lucky to have her, and would be luckier to keep her. He knew he was supposed to tell Oliver, like the mature one, that this was the right next step for him, for _them_ , for Oliver and Laurel. 

But just the thought of it, of throwing everything he’d been betting on like it was a sure thing right out the window, of being the supportive best friend… 

It made his windpipe narrow, breath whistling between gritted teeth. His cheeks were ice cold, but his chest on fire. 

Tommy slapped the phone facedown on the coverlet and pushed it away from him, towards the pillows. 

He couldn’t do it. 

Not yet. 

Not yet. 

Hands shaking, he pushed himself up off the bed and mechanically began to dress, eyes staring sightlessly into the middle distance. Jeans on, navy sweater pulled over his head, thick socks on his feet. One little motion, little action at a time. 

It could wait, he decided, drifting into the bathroom to fix his hair through the condensation on the mirror. It could wait until after dinner. 

He would have a couple of hours, maybe three or four, to just be fine. To pretend nothing was about to blow up and that he had no idea how it would all be rearranged. A few hours of Alfred’s cooking and Dick’s ridiculous sense of humor and Tim’s sniper-precise comebacks. Of Bruce tolerantly pretending to be above it all and hiding his smirk behind his napkin. 

And then the Bat Signal would go up in the sky or Poison Ivy would orchestrate a revenge of the pumpkin patch, or Joker would stage some Norman Rockwell-esque homicidal Thanksgiving satire with the mayor’s family as hostages on the local news station or something. 

And then Tommy would be alone. 

_Then_ he would deal with… this. 

But first… 

Tommy sucked in a deep breath and set his hand on the knob of his bedroom door. He pasted a charming smile on his lips and willed a teasing twinkle into his eyes. He opened the door. 

First he would go downstairs, and have dinner with his family.

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy! or don't. this one is largely for my own amusement.


End file.
